In Interviews, 3 Americans Held in North Korea Plead for U.S. Help

By CHOE SANG-HUN

September 1, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea granted two United States news organizations interviews with three incarcerated Americans on Monday, with each prisoner apologizing for violating its laws and beseeching Washington to send a high-level emissary to negotiate their release.

The three had been interviewed before in orchestrated televised appearances in which they expressed contrition and asked the United States for help. But Monday was the first time the North Korean authorities permitted the two American news organizations, CNN and The Associated Press, to speak to all three in the same location.

The choreography of the interviews seemed to make increasingly clear that North Korea wanted to use the three Americans as bargaining leverage to pressure Washington to engage the country in dialogue. The United States, which has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, has led an effort to increasingly isolate the country over its nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

CNN and The A.P. said the interviews were conducted individually in different rooms. All said they were treated fairly by the North Korean authorities and had been allowed to contact their families. But they spoke while North Korean officials were present, suggesting they had been coached.

“I’ve been going back and forth from hospital to the labor camp for the last year and a half,” the longest-held prisoner, Kenneth Bae, told CNN, adding that he was working eight hours a day, six days a week at a labor camp.

Mr. Bae, 46, a Christian missionary, was arrested after having arrived in the North in late 2012. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for the “anti-state” crime of trying to build an undercover proselytizing network within the North with the aim of toppling its government.

Mr. Bae complained in the interview of failing health, including diabetes, backaches and high blood pressure, maladies that have long afflicted him.

His sister, Terri Chung, emailed a statement to news organizations after she watched the CNN interview, saying that Mr. Bae was normally outgoing and cheerful, “larger than life — but I could not see that man today.”

It was clear, she said, that Mr. Bae’s back had been hurting him as he sought to sit for the interview. “Working eight hours a day of hard labor — his sentence — is the last thing his body needs,” Ms. Chung said. She implored North Korea: “Please have mercy. It is in your power to release my brother.”

The others, Jeffrey Edward Fowle, and Matthew Todd Miller, reiterated assertions made in earlier interviews that they expected to face trial soon. They said they still did not know what specific charges they faced, although they both said they had signed statements admitting their crimes.

Mr. Fowle, 56, an Ohio municipal worker, entered North Korea in April on a tourist visa and was arrested after he left a Bible behind in a hotel. The authorities may have interpreted that act as Christian proselytizing, which is deemed a crime of trying to undermine North Korea’s political system.

“Within a month I could be sharing a jail cell with Ken Bae,” Mr. Fowle told The A.P.

He confirmed that he had been allowed to communicate with his wife and three children, ages 9, 10 and 12, who live in Miamisburg, Ohio, a Dayton suburb, but that he had not spoken with them for three weeks.

“I’m desperate to get back to them,” he said.

Mr. Bae had been permitted previously to speak to outside media, including a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan, to make appeals for the United States to send a high-level envoy to Pyongyang. In interviews with an A.P. television news crew a month ago, both Mr. Fowle and Mr. Miller made similar appeals.

Mr. Miller, 24, entered North Korea in April. But according to the North, he shredded his tourist visa upon arrival at the airport and demanded asylum. He was arrested for unruly behavior. In his interviews with The A.P. and CNN, he did not discuss whether he had sought to defect to North Korea.

He expressed frustration to CNN, saying that “there’s been no movement from my government.”

North Korea, regarded as one of the most repressive and impoverished countries, wants a direct dialogue with the United States in part to negotiate a peace treaty to bring a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which was halted by an armistice agreement. But the United States has demurred, insisting that the North has repeatedly acted deceptively.

The United States relies on the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang to represent the interests of its citizens held there. Washington has repeatedly offered to send its envoy for North Korean human rights issues, Robert King, to Pyongyang to appeal for the release of the Americans, but without success.

In contrast with the Americans’ treatment, North Korea quickly deported a detained Australian missionary in March after he apologized and requested forgiveness for proselytizing in Pyongyang.

In the past, North Korea had released detained Americans when prominent emissaries like former President Bill Clinton made trips to Pyongyang to ask for their release, a move Pyongyang then advertised at home as Washington’s recognition of it as a dialogue partner.

The State Department has strongly advised against American travel to North Korea, asserting that United States citizens face increased risk of arbitrary arrest.

Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a statement that the United States had requested that North Korea release Mr. Fowle and Mr. Miller so they could return home and reunite with their families. Ms. Harf also said the United States had requested that North Korea “pardon Kenneth Bae and grant him special amnesty, and immediate release so he may reunite with his family and seek medical care.”

She said all three had been visited by Swedish Embassy intermediaries, including Mr. Bae in a labor camp on Aug. 11.

Correction: September 3, 2014

Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about interviews with three Americans who have been detained in North Korea referred incorrectly, in some editions, to Miamisburg, Ohio, the hometown of one of the prisoners, Jeffrey Edward Fowle. It is a suburb of Dayton, not Akron.

Correction: September 4, 2014

An article on Tuesday about three Americans incarcerated in North Korea who were interviewed by CNN and The Associated Press with the permission of the North Korean authorities misspelled the given name of one of the Americans in some copies. He is Matthew Todd Miller, not Mathew.

Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.